{"id":1835,"date":"2026-06-11T10:39:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T10:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=1835"},"modified":"2026-06-11T10:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T10:39:27","slug":"walters-egged-on-by-trump-right-wing-ecosystem-makes-baseless-claims-of-california-voter-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=1835","title":{"rendered":"Walters: Egged on by Trump, right-wing ecosystem makes baseless claims of California voter fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the immediate days after last week\u2019s primary election, the vast community of right-wing bloggers, X users, podcasters and YouTuber influencers trumpeted that California, the state they love to hate, was turning red.<\/p>\n

Read more Horoscopes June 11, 2026: Peter Dinklage, pay attention to your health<\/a><\/p>\n

Early reports of vote-counting in the top-two primary had Republican Steve Hilton, a British-born former Fox News commentator, leading the pack of 61 candidates for governor.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Republican Spencer Pratt was running second in the race for mayor of Los Angeles, having aired a string of AI-generated parodies of Mayor Karen Bass.<\/p>\n

As the count continued, Pratt dropped into third place. On Monday, Hilton still stood in second place behind Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra, but his lead over billionaire Tom Steyer had narrowed to about 5 percentage points, and the outcome was still uncertain.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the right-wing media gaggle evolved from\u00a0jubilation\u00a0to complaints about how long it was taking to count the votes and\u00a0allegations, without evidence, that fraud was being committed.<\/p>\n

They were joined by President Donald Trump who, in an\u00a0interview aired Sunday\u00a0on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d accused California officials of \u201ccheating,\u201d citing the protracted ballot count.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have evidence to support that?\u201d interviewer Kristen Welker asked Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I have to do is look,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cBut sir, that\u2019s not evidence. That\u2019s how they count the votes in California,\u201d Welker persisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, they\u2019re crooked \u2026 just like you\u2019re crooked,\u201d Trump shot back. \u201cYour press is crooked and \u2018Meet the Press\u2019 is crooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re either crooked or you\u2019re stupid,\u201d he continued. \u201cYou know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they\u2019re rigged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Trump decided to \u201ccall it quits,\u201d removed his microphone, and told Welker, \u201cThank you, darling, have a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Asking Eric: I\u2019m worried about my neighbor\u2019s future mangoes<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

With Trump setting the tone, the social media warriors will continue beating the baseless election fraud drum.\u00a0House Speaker Mike Johnson took a swipe\u00a0on Monday, saying that \u201ceverybody knows instinctively something is wrong.\u201d On Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli posted on X that\u00a0federal prosecutors were working with the FBI\u00a0on \u201cmultiple election fraud investigations,\u201d but provided no specifics.<\/p>\n

Counting votes in California does take a lot of time, a syndrome rooted in decades of efforts by dominant Democrats to increase the numbers of ballots cast. They depict it as enhancing the democratic process, but also believe that it will help them prevail in close elections.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not cheating, but it is certainly partisan motivation, and it began after Democrats suffered a series of setbacks in legislative elections in the late 1970s. To stop the hemorrhage, Democrats gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts after the 1980 census and made it much easier for voters to use so-called absentee ballots to vote by mail.<\/p>\n

Ironically, however, they failed to capitalize in the 1982 elections, while Republicans used it to very narrowly elect Attorney General George Deukmejian as governor \u2014 even though pre-election polls indicated he would lose to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.<\/p>\n

Democrats continued to expand voter rolls and turnout with automatic voter registration through the Department of Motor Vehicles and allowing election-day registration. The\u00a02016 Voter Choice Act\u00a0made in-person voting more difficult by\u00a0reducing voting sites\u00a0while encouraging mail voting.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the state mails every voter a ballot by default. All the extra process for mailed ballots now applies to nearly twice the volume as in 2018,\u201d Eric McGhee of the Public Policy Institute of California and Mindy Romero of USC\u2019s Center for Inclusive Democracy pointed out in a\u00a0recent guest commentary for CalMatters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSignatures must be checked for each ballot to ensure the correct person submitted it. This is an election security measure meant to instill the confidence in elections that critics of the slow count say they want.<\/p>\n

\u201cA true fix would focus more squarely on the counting process itself, seeking to tighten it up without disenfranchising voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically then, the state\u2019s efforts to verify the legitimacy of ballots lengthen the count, which then leads to allegations that the count is being manipulated.<\/p>\n

Read more Harriette Cole: I\u2019m being blamed for a child\u2019s broken arm<\/a><\/p>\n

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right-wing influencers and Donald Trump allege California election fraud over slow vote counting, but the delay is due to mandatory ballot security measures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nWalters: Egged on by Trump, right-wing ecosystem makes baseless claims of California voter fraud - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=1835\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walters: Egged on by Trump, right-wing ecosystem makes baseless claims of California voter fraud - 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